 It was not unusual for a member of Moscow’s business elite to become a patron of the arts in late imperial Russia. The reforms of the 1860s had turned Tsarist society upside down, and the burgeoning number of young industrialists who suddenly found themselves very wealthy invariably emulated their aristocratic forebears by buying paintings. Art collections began springing up in Moscow like mushrooms in a forest as merchants sought paintings for the walls of their newly acquired mansions, and relaxation from the hard work of doing business. It was also not unusual for Russia’s pre-Revolutionary oligarchs, unfettered by received ideas about what was worthy of collecting, to buy paintings by living artists. Thanks to Pavel Tretyakov, the purchase of modern Russian art had become an eminently respectable, even fashionable activity; his brother Sergei’s more traditional collection of 19th-century Western European painting also included some contemporary works. It was, however, unusual for Moscow merchants to buy contemporary paintings by the most trailblazing members of the French avant-garde. Read More via Apollo-Magazine.
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